Paintings as bass traps

After viewing a tutorial on the creation of bass traps, I noticed many similarities between the creation of a hanging "cloud" and a standard canvas for painting. Being a painter as well as an engineer, I was wondering if there is an inherent flaw in the use of a 4 inch thich canvas, 4 feet wide by 6 feet tall, placed in the corner with insulation jammed into the back of the panel and placed in a corner. Does the painted surface (with thick oil paint) diffuse the high frequencies well? And what foam/ insulation would you recommend for bass control in the back of them if so? My room is 12 feet wide by 12 feet long wioth 8 foot ceilings, and has a standard door on the left wall at the lower portion.

Aloha and welcome to the forum! Congrats on your studio build! Any chance you could please:

Edit your profile to include your location. This is very important, because this is a worldwide resource, and as such, material costs and availability vary widely. For example, masonry is cheaper than gypsum in some parts of the globe, whereas it's the exact opposite in other regions.

You'll probably get more of a response by doing so and this will really come in handy two or three posts down the road. It's also part of the forum guidelines: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7572 http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3231 Thanks! :wink:

Does the painted surface (with thick oil paint) diffuse the high frequencies well?

The painted surface would reflect rather than diffuse, possibly contributing to any flutter echoes already existing.

And what foam/ insulation would you recommend for bass control in the back of them if so?

What you need to ask for is either rigid fiberglass, such as Owens Corning 703 (un-faced) or rockwool, mineral wool, somewhere between 2 to 4 pounds per cubic foot density; Johns Manville and Knauf also make similar products. Steve

Looking forward to your build! Aloha 8)

Thank you so much. I truly appreciate any time and energy and most of all, knowledge you are sharing. I love this forum. It seems like a very mature and focused forum and I like that. I have updated the information. I am from Chicago. Also, my room is very standard 12 X 12 feet and 8 feet high, so I can hear the thickness of the untreated room all over the spectrum. I think I need to creatively angle vertical rows of spaced and stacked diffusors in the corners spaced in between painted objects on some slight angles so the oil painted surfaces bounce the HF/MIDs over to a diffusor or absorber while the bass traps suck in the low frequencies. I hope this works because I am trying to get the room treated mostly in the corners for visual reasons and to leave the walls open for my lovely wife's aesthetic reasons! The problem is, I have BASIC to low low knowledge of the real science. I am just fascinated by this art of acoustics though, but it just blows over my head because I can't test it. And I'm VERY visual of a person. I'm basically trying to get the paintings to work with rockwool or something similar in the back of them and in the corners with a good solution for sight and sound to a "Monica from Friends" (her) type and a "musician/engineer" type (me) so this is a hard challenge no doubt.

This is indeed a challenge - in over 40 years of marriage (and about 25 years of "acoustic awareness") I've come to the conclusion that, for the most part, "WAF" and decent room acoustics are diametrically opposed :? Your "modal nightmare" room ratios definitely need a lot of help - and covering your corner traps with anything as acoustically opaque as painted canvas will make these absorbers act more as bass (only) traps, making it more difficult to get your room semi-acceptable for a decent balanced listening position - the actual distribution of modal energy isn't all that bad, but it's bunched up at several frequencies due to your dimensions being either identical or at even multiples (3x either width or length = 2x the height) One possible way around some of this might be asking your wife to try a new "medium" - use a more open weave cloth to cover normal 3 PCF thick corner absorbers, then using thinner paints use this cloth as a "canvas" and create a new painting that does NOT have all the pores of the cloth saturated. It should be obvious by now that Picasso is NOT one of my previous identities, but this might be something to look into. Solid false "walls" can help some of the more obvious room faults such as flutter, if they are angled by at least 6 degrees per side (or 12 degrees if only used on one wall) but a mix position needs to be symmetrical or it will mislead you on stereo balance. Another idea for corner traps with heavy canvas paintings over them - if these aren't priceless masters, maybe finding a way to "micro-perforate" the canvas AFTER paint has dried would help acoustic absorption without causing the art to suffer - assuming people won't be taking a magnifying glass to examine the artwork, that is. One of the major manufacturers of acoustic products offer such a panel in acrylic sheet for places where absorption is needed without blocking lines of sight. Ideally, if there is ANY way you can dedicate a room to only ONE use it will be MUCH easier to make it useful to THAT purpose - especially if you can close the door and explain to your wife that if she doesn't like the way it looks there are OTHER rooms (good luck on THAT one; it only took me about 30 years to reach that point, and it's STILL sort of an "armed truce") HTH... Steve

First of all, I rely appreciate your reply immensely for a myriad of reasons. I respect and appreciate all the input. I should let you know that I have total control over the placement of anything that looks reasonably nice in that room. I am also the painter, so I can do whatever to the art. I was really just looking for advice on using my very high quality frames I already built for painting in this case for acoustic purposes as well. Sort of a double feature. but I can do, and want to do whatever is the most beneficial to my room in terms of acoustics only. My room is horrid. But I have the drive to build anything to tame it. I will try anything. Including sweet-talking the female persuasion.

I am going to post some hand drawings for you here. I have an MDF closet that is floor to ceiling in one corner I think I can fill with 703 and make a huge superchunk

how bout water color over white/tan canvas or perhaps rit fabric dye to paint with either of those shouldn't clog the pores